I was born in Sommerville, Massachussetts in 1961 and spent the first six years of my life there before moving 20 miles south of Boston to a nice little town on the coast called Marshfield. It was there that I witnessed my first Horserace at a fair circuit track named the Marshfield Fair. It was obvious from the first time I walked in the gates of my hometown fair that there was something special going on during race days of the two week event and I wanted very much to be part of it. My father would take those two weeks off each year to work the admission gates. Even though he did not have to be at the fair until 9:00am each morning I would make him drop me off at 6:00 so I could watch the horses work out each morning. I wanted to be as close as I could get to the action and would talk to any of the horsemen that would talk to me, but mostly when you're ten years old you hear the same old things, either "get away from me kid you're bothering me", or "stay away because you're going to get hurt". Luckily I am not the type of person who gives up easily and before long I was given the opportunity to muck stalls and do some hotwalking for free of course, but the joke was on them because I gladly would have paid them for the pleasure of working with their horses. When I was twelve or thirteen I met a man named Jeff Walsh who had a small string of horses at the fair and he was also the outrider for the Mass fair circuit as well as Suffolk Downs in East Boston. Jeff saw my desire to be around horses and set out to teach me how much time and effort goes into training each horse as an individual. Being around a man who was respected as much as Jeff had it's advantages because all of a sudden Jockeys would talk to me as well as other trainers. My parents both respected Jeff for the work ethic he taught me at a young age and would even let me travel the rest of the fair circuit each year into September allowing me to miss the first week or so of school each year to do what I loved so much. After a few years Jeff allowed me to work a horse or two each morning usually with the aid of a pony. Through Jeff I became friends of a jockey named Larry Damore and his wife Debby. Larry was a very good rider on the fair circuit and later became one of Bob Bafferts main excersise riders. I only found this out through seeing photo's of Larry working Silver Charm and Real Quiet. Shortly after High School Jeff moved to Texas and although we talked from time to time we lost contact after awhile. I owe Jeff a great deal for taking the time to show me the horseracing game and for that I thank him and his familly. That was the end of my backstretch career with horses though the love of the game has never left me for a second.

When I met my wife Susan in the mid eighties it became quickly apparent to her that in order to be with me she too would have to have that same love of the game. While we were dating we would go to Suffolk downs every few weeks and make a yearly trip to Saratoga. We were married in August of 1988 and every year we traveled to upstate NY we would pick up the Real Estate books and dream of buying our first house as close to Saratoga as we could get. In 1990 my wife gave birth to our first child, a daughter named Amanda. We followed that up in 1995 with my son Stephen. After my Mother passed away from breast cancer in 1998 I told my wife that I would like to try for a job transfer to Upstate NY and buy that house we had always talked about. Well large retail companies are not big into lateral transfers with moving packages. So the wheels turned a lot slower than I wanted to see. In late winter of 2002 I recieved the call that I had waited so long to hear. I would be able to interview for the position in the area I had waited years to see happen. So in June of 2002 after living out of hotels for 2 and a half months I moved my family to Niskayuna NY where we are only a short 25 minute drive to the greatest racetrack in the world. Though I miss my friends and familly that are back in Mass, this has been a great move for my familly. The schools are great and the wife is enjoying her job. Working retail Management demands a great deal of time with very few weekends off but does allow me to travel to Saratoga almost weekly to see the horses work in the early morning mist with my two kids who love the sounds of a horses heavy breathing as they pound down the stretch just as much as their Dad does. It's hard to believe that Amanda will be 14 next spring and Steve just turned 8 last weekend. We were able to get them a dog when we moved here for the first time and choose a Siberian Husky named Skeye who my wife named for his sky blue eyes as well as the cat we have had for a few years named Purra.

What free time I do have is spent working on my Sim horses and I am very grateful to the Pastures Team for all the help and advice they have given to me in the two plus years that I have been a member. Although I haven't had a great deal of sucess in the Sim, I have not lost my zest for the game and enjoy my cheap claimers as much as the few horses that can run in open company. I will keep working on getting better and look forward to the day when one of my horses make it to the big dance. Again thanks to Mano and LS as well as all the great people who make the Green of Vermont the best place in the Sim. Steve and the stables of Noles02, Head2head, sopark100 and pt.